


to the stars

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Persona 2
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 22:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16982835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: Sumaru City is overbright. It stings Tatsuya’s eyes and makes him want to duck his head. That’s why they started going to the shrine in the first place, him and Jun—it gets darker here than anywhere else at night. Really dark, dark like the place Tatsuya goes when he closes his eyes. He likes it because of that, and Jun likes it because it’s far enough away from the streetlights that you can see the stars. They’re always the same, the two of them. They like the same things, even when it’s for different reasons.





	to the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, you just have to get really into a twenty year old game for no good reason. It's Linda's fault. 
> 
> I haven't finished Innocent Sin yet, but the ghost that lives inside my PSP possessed me and forced me to write this! That's just how it is sometimes.

Sumaru City is overbright. It stings Tatsuya’s eyes and makes him want to duck his head. That’s why they started going to the shrine in the first place, him and Jun—it gets darker here than anywhere else at night. Really dark, dark like the place Tatsuya goes when he closes his eyes. He likes it because of that, and Jun likes it because it’s far enough away from the streetlights that you can see the stars. They’re always the same, the two of them. They like the same things, even when it’s for different reasons.

They lie back in the grass and look up at the sky. It’s a little cold, but Tatsuya likes that he can feel the grass tickling his arms when he spreads them out. Jun says the flowers here are special, that there’s something in the soil that means they can only grow here. 

Jun points. “There. Do you see it? You’re a Leo,” he says. “Like a lion! That seems right.”

Tatsuya bares his teeth and does his best lion growl. It needs some work, but it makes Jun smile, so that’s all right. He nudges Jun with his foot.

“Me? I’m an Aquarius.”

Tatsuya squints at him, and then back at the sky. “Like water?”

Jun smiles back at him, the quiet mysterious smile he sometimes gets. It makes Tatsuya curious. Most of the time he’s okay letting things pass him by. He doesn’t need to look closer. But when Jun smiles like that, he has to. “Something like that. It’s represented by someone who carries water.”

Tatsuya turns back to the sky, and thinks about that for a little while. Jun always gives him time to think. He doesn’t demand fast answers like they do at school, doesn’t get impatient waiting for him to say something like Tatsuya’s dad does, doesn’t get bored and wander off like Katsuya has started too, now that he’s gotten older. Water. Water can mean a lot of things. So can carrying. Jun carries plenty: his lunch, when they walk to school together, and the watch Tatsuya gave him, his thumb always rubbing over its face, and Tatsuya’s backpack for a whole week once, when Tatsuya had broken his arm and had it in a sling. He complained the whole time, but when Tatsuya tried to take it back Jun wouldn’t give it to him. 

He carries Tatsuya through conversations, when there are a lot of adults talking at once and Tatsuya can only look at his shoes and not hear anything at all while he fumbles with his lighter. He has to keep it in his pocket, so that no one will take it away. Then Jun will smile, and say something polite, whatever it is the adults want to hear, and Tatsuya doesn’t have to do anything. It’s like bobbing along a river, a gentle one. 

“That’s right,” Tatsuya says, looking back at Jun. “That’s you.”

“I think so,” Jun agrees. He tucks his arms behind his head. “The stars can tell us a lot, you know! Not just your horoscope. Sailors used to use them to find things.”

“Can you do that?” Jun can do a lot of things. He can name every plant they see, and if he doesn’t know the name, he can come up with one that will make Tatsuya laugh. He can do Tatsuya’s math problems when Tatsuya is tired or bored or can’t focus. He can play the piano really well, even though he’s only been taking lessons for a year. 

“Sure!” Jun grins at him, his I’m-kidding grin, and Tatsuya returns it. Smiling is easy with Jun. Like picking up a passed baton. Jun sits up and spreads his arms. “We can go on an adventure. All we need is a boat. It’ll be like that motorcycle you want, but for both of us! You can do the rigging and the sails, and I’ll navigate by the stars, and it’ll be just us and the water. It’ll be perfect.”

It does sound perfect. It sounds like what Jun and Tatsuya are like anyway: an island all to themselves, surrounded by a sea that is calm and dangerous by turns. But no matter what, they have each other. 

Tatsuya sits up and crosses his legs. He takes out the lighter and runs his thumbs over the inscription. You don’t need to see things to know they’re important, but he still likes being out here, where he can watch the stars. He knows they’re always there anyway. But it’s safer when he can put eyes on them. “They don’t change, do they?”

“The stars?”

“Yeah.”

“No, Ta-chan,” Jun says. He’s smiling the mysterious smile again. Tatsuya fumbles with the lighter, almost drops it. “They’re always the same. The world moves around them, so sometimes they look different, but that doesn’t matter. At heart, they’re the same.”

“That sounds nice,” Tatsuya says. “I don’t want to change.” He likes playing at the shrine with Jun and Lisa and Eikichi and Big Sis. He likes sitting and watching the stars with Jun. Adults always make everything sound so difficult, but this is easy. It should always be easy.

“Don’t worry,” says Jun. “We won’t. I promise.” He pulls out the watch. “See! As long as we have these, nothing will change.”

Tatsuya flicks open the lighter. “Right. I promise.”

-

They don’t talk about it, when Jun and Tatsuya both silently turn and walk back to the shrine, after the group splits up as they leave Taurus Temple. Maya’s the one who sees where they’re headed—she waves at them, a big goofy grin on her face, like there’s nothing to worry about. She’s good at that. Tatsuya envies it, a little—he can barely smile when there isn’t anything to worry about. 

Jun is looking over his shoulder, watching her. His smile is sad, when he turns back. He catches Tatsuya’s eye and inclines his head. “Shall we?”

Tatsuya nods, and they go, walking side by side. They used to be the same height, but Jun’s shorter now. It’s strange. Tatsuya doesn’t feel like he should be the taller one. 

The city’s a mess, but not as much of one as it should be. Maybe Sumara City’s become resistant to strangeness, over the past few weeks. You can get used to anything, in a week or in ten years. You can miss something—a friend, a memory, having a city that’s on the ground and not in the sky—and after a while it just leaves behind a hollow. Once you get used to it, you don’t even know what it is you’re missing. 

The little stall on the road leading up to the shrine that sells ice cream is still there. Jun and Tatsuya used to save all week to afford one. Right now, Tatsuya’s got a few hundred thousand yen weighing down his pockets, slated to be spent on a new sword.

“Shouldn’t you be taking shelter, ma’am?” Jun asks the woman manning the stall, polite and concerned. She waves him off, muttering under her breath about kids these days. There’s a rumor going around that she sells grenades out of the cart, if you know how to ask.

Jun shrugs, and buys two ice creams. He hands one to Tatsuya, his eyes glancing off his face, down to his hand as he takes it, then back up to meet Tatsuya’s eyes. Tatsuya looks away. Jun still never blushes, not the way that Tatsuya does.

They walk up the path, and sit down in the grass to eat. It’s a little scorched from the fight, but it’ll grow back.

“It’s getting dark,” Jun says, balancing his chin on one hand. His ice cream is starting to melt. Tatsuya’s finished his. It was easier to look at than anything else. “We’ll be able to see the stars soon.”

“Even from here?” Tatsuya doesn’t mean the shrine. He means from the air, the whole city suspended, a breath waiting to be let out. 

“Sure,” Jun says. “They don’t move, remember?”

Tatsuya watches him. Plenty of things about Jun haven’t changed in ten years: he knows just as much about flowers, he’s as polite as ever, he stills smiles that mysterious smile. He’s just as pretty. Lisa’d said it mock despairingly, after she sat Jun down and smeared lipstick all over his face, and she and Eikichi had stared at each other when Tatsuya quietly agreed. Jun had just smiled at him, and Maya laughed her indulgent Big Sis laugh. 

It’s nice to all be together again. Tatsuya missed it, even when he didn’t know he did. 

“But the world moves,” he says. “You can’t stop that.”

“No.” Jun puts his ice cream aside, and turns to face Tatsuya fully. “But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. It would be boring, if everything always stayed in the same place. And even when things go in the wrong direction...you can always turn back. Right?” He’s not smiling now. He’s trembling, a little, the way he had when they’d walked past Leo and Aquarius Temples on their way around the city. They’ll go to one of them tomorrow. Tatsuya thinks he’ll let Maya pick which.

Tatsuya nods. He reaches out and takes Jun’s wrist, the one he’s refastened the watch around. 

“Right,” Jun says, a little more confident now. “Like a clock. You can rewind it.”

That’s not quite true. Some things leave their mark. But the watch started ticking again, even after ten long years. 

“Hey, Tatsuya?” Jun’s smiling again. Tatsuya thinks he’s beginning to understand it, finally. He turns his wrist over in Tatsuya’s grip, taking his hand. “Did you mean it? What you said at Taurus Temple? It’s okay if you didn’t.” 

He didn’t mean to say anything at all. But it’s been just a little harder to be silent since Jun came back. That’s not always a good thing—when he doesn’t know the right words to wrap around something in his head, usually he just shuts up. But when Jun is around, he tries, and trying means that sometimes he fails. He says the wrong thing, or says the right thing in the wrong way. 

It’s been a long ten years. They’re all of them living in their own regrets, and it’s okay. It is. It will be. But Tatsuya doesn’t want to fail at this. 

But it _was_ the right thing, saying that he only had eyes for Jun. It’s true. He can feel it, like gravity. The city is falling to pieces around them, but Jun is beautiful, and Tatsuya can’t look at anything else. Jun’s the piece of Tatsuya that was missing, his hollow place. He was like a compass without a north. But things will be okay now. They always are, when Jun is there.

He tugs at Jun’s hand, and Jun is as easy and accommodating as ever. He leans in when Tatsuya pulls. He lets Tatsuya brush his hair from his eyes, even as his smile slips a little, sliding the way it does when he gets nervous. He stays very, very still when Tatsuya kisses him. 

Tatsuya never thought about it much, what to expect. It’s warm, and a little dry, and so delicate he thinks he’ll die from it, having Jun’s breath on his lips.

When Tatsuya pulls back, Jun blinks at him. He’s smiling a totally new smile. Tatsuya doesn’t mind. It’s nice, that there are new things about Jun to discover.

“Let’s see how they look from here.” Tatsuya points, but he knows that Jun understands him anyway. He lies back against the ground, and Jun curls up next to him, tucked into his side, head on his chest and hand flat against his stomach. A little different from when they were kids—a lot different—but Tatsuya doesn’t mind that either. It makes him feel warm and overbright, but in a good way. So really, Jun hasn’t changed at all: as long as they’re together, Jun makes things better than they should be.

-

Maya picks Leo temple. Eikichi grumbles about it—he wants to go kick his shadow’s ass, and prove once and for all who the better man is—but she stands firm. She keeps sneaking looks at Tatsuya, and it’s Big Sis, so of course he has to smile back. 

He’s not nervous to meet his shadow, exactly. Jun eyes him every few minutes, and every time he does he catches Tatsuya fiddling with the lighter, but it’s mostly habit at this point. His body trying to remember something his mind long ago forgot. 

They fight, and they climb, and Jun gives him a flower with a sparkle in his eye. Tatsuya doesn’t say anything. He can’t, not with everyone looking at them: his friends, and a curious pack of demons, a thousand eyes darting between the space that opens up from Jun’s hand to his. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jun tells him. People have said that to Tatsuya before. Lots of them. Jun’s the only one who’s ever meant it. Tatsuya takes the flower, and doesn’t say anything. He tucks it into his front pocket, and Jun beams.

Lisa bumps her hip with his, as they climb up to the third floor. Tatsuya is sweating. Leo Temple is stifling, and the higher they go, the hotter it gets. There’s sand in his shoe, too, left over from Taurus. “Someday I’ll be the kind of girl to get you flowers,” she says. “Just you _wait_.” She grins at him, like it’s something they can joke about. It’s better to joke about it, than to turn around, refuse to face her. Tatsuya smiles at her. It’s getting easier, the way it’s gotten easy to smile at Maya. Lisa nods, like something’s been decided, and then she runs ahead, shouting at Eikichi to slow down, what kind of guy leaves a girl behind!

They approach the last room. Tatsuya tucks his hands into his pockets, clenching them into fists. He avoids Maya’s eyes, but he meets Jun’s steady gaze, as they open the door. Jun doesn’t try to reassure him. He just nods. 

They walk in, and Tatsuya is there, twisted up all wrong. 

Maya says that Jun is his doppelganger. Tatsuya thinks about that, staring back into his own face. It’s him. But it’s not his reflection. The true reflection of him lives in Jun, all the light in him mirrored there and none of the dark. 

Jun brings him out into the light. Tatsuya could never hate him. He says so, but he can’t say why. It’s one of those things words can’t wrap around.

Afterwards, Tatsuya doesn’t feel much different. There’s always been parts of himself he doesn’t like to confront. He has a lot of dusty corners. But it seems to matter less. 

Jun meets his gaze again, after the battle, but this time he doesn’t smile. His face remains still as they leave the temple, as he climbs onto Tatsuya’s motorcycle, silent and graceful.

He’s quiet the whole ride home. Jun’s been staying at Tatsuya’s house. They haven’t really talked about that, either. He’s ridden with Tatsuya on the bike a few times before, and he always shouted gleefully into Tatsuya’s ear, thrilled that Tatsuya got the thing he’d been dreaming of for so long. But now he’s quiet, his arms just a little bit tighter around Tatsuya’s middle.

Tatsuya parks, and Jun shadows him all the way up to his room. Tatsuya sits down at the creaky old chair by his desk, the same one that was too large for him when they were little. He and Jun used to sit in it together, pressed side by side, peering close at something on the desk. Jun makes his slow circuit around the room, picking things up, neatening Tatsuya’s books, folding blankets. He’s always done that. But for the past few nights the motions have been accompanied by chatter. Now he says nothing at all. 

Tatsuya has to get this right. His aim’s been getting better, with his sword and with his magic. Maybe some of it will bleed over into his words. Crazier things have come true, lately.

He reaches out a hand. Jun sees it. He understands. But he doesn’t move. He just looks at Tatsuya with serious quiet eyes. “The stars last night,” Tatsuya says. “They did look different. From the angle, or the magic, but...they’re millions of miles away. Just because we’re looking at them from a different place, it doesn’t mean the things that were true about them before aren’t true now.”

“That’s right,” Jun allows. “It’d be very tiresome to have to redo the zodiac, I suppose.”

It’s not working. Tatsuya twitches his fingers, and this time Jun comes. He takes Tatsuya’s hand in both of his, squinting down at it. 

“Fortune telling?”

“No.” Jun looks up. Tatsuya draws him in, one more time, and Jun sighs, and goes. He settles himself sideways in Tatsuya’s lap. The old chair creaks, but it did that when the were small, too. It’ll hold. 

“I trust you.” That doesn’t seem to be right either. It doesn’t smooth the creases in Jun’s face, the shadows living in his eyes. 

He reaches out, tracing the line of Tatsuya’s cheek. “I won’t leave you,” he says. Repeats. He said it often enough, while they fought in the temple. “I’ll always be by your side, Tatsuya. But I know I hurt you. You don’t have to make me feel better.” 

Tatsuya puts an arm around his waist. Jun leans into it, something almost sulky about the gesture. Like he doesn’t want to, but he can’t resist.

Jun did hurt him. Joker did. They’re one in the same, the way that Tatsuya and his shadow are the same: the wrong things reflected. Jun hurt him, but Tatsuya knows that Jun would _never_ hurt him. Not willingly. So it doesn’t matter. The truth doesn’t change. There’s nothing to forgive. But Tatsuya can feel that’s not the right thing to say, the same way he can feel when something’s off on his bike, the subtle ways it fails to respond. “I forgive you.” Jun startles, a little, and Tatsuya tightens his arm. _It wasn’t your fault. I would have done the same thing. I’m going to tear your father limb from limb, when I get the chance._ “Jun. I forgive you.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you say something twice,” Jun murmurs. He sways forward a little, dipping his head so their noses touch. “It’s so funny. People think you’re very cool, you know. Bad boy Tatsuya. But you’re so unbearably sweet, sometimes.”

Tatsuya breathes in, and Jun breathes out, easy like the tide. Jun kisses him, this time, one hand pressed to his chest and the other splayed along his neck, thumb on Tatsuya’s collarbone. Softly once, and then twice, and then he presses in harder, hand sliding back into Tatsuya’s hair. “I missed you,” he whispers. “I thought you’d hate me. You should. I would. And then you said all those things—and if I didn’t know any better I wouldn’t believe you—”

But he does know Tatsuya. He knows that Tatsuya doesn’t say most of the things he means, but he means the things he does say. A lot sticks in his throat. There’s no point in pressing forward and saying something anyway, if he doesn’t mean it. 

Tatsuya cups his face in his hands and lets Jun kiss him, because Jun doesn’t need an answer other than that. It’s no different than when they were younger, when Jun led them all around Sumaru City, glancing at Tatsuya’s face and somehow always, always knowing what he wanted to do. Tatsuya used to think it was magic, but probably it was just this: they want the same things, always. 

The chair is sturdy. It doesn’t break, but it does tip backwards, when Jun presses forward with just a little too much force. Jun squeaks, and Tatsuya grabs for him instinctively as it pitches over, holding him close as they come crashing down. 

He blinks up at the ceiling. The flower in his pocket is crushed. Jun, against his chest, begins to giggle. 

“My hero,” he says, smiling down at Tatsuya, his hair falling like a curtain beside Tatsuya’s face. It’s a different kind of darkness than the one at the shrine, but it makes Tatsuya feel just as calm. “Maybe you’re right. The important things haven’t changed at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter and tumblr (I guess?) at luckydicekirby!


End file.
